Newt Gingrich's new role: shameless

Republican presidential candidate and former speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, in Florida. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

When we think of someone running for president, the question is usually if the candidate "has what it takes": drive, ambition, charm, money, ruthlessness.

But there's an equally important set of negative qualifications, qualities a candidate can't have: easily wounded pride, say, and subtlety. Chief among these hindrances is a sense of shame. And whatever Newt Gingrich lacks in positive attributes, he towers over the field in his disregard for common decency.

Ron Paul is oblivious to how people see him – just look at how he dresses – but lack of self-awareness isn't the same as arrogance. And Rick Santorum, for all his many trips down ideological blind alleys, knows exactly what it is to be ashamed. He's Googled it.

Newt, on the other hand, would not recognize shame if it took out a 30-second attack ad against him. This disregard for the reputational cost of his actions is why his claim that he will dog Romney all the way to the GOP convention is credible (even if he has to ride along on the roof).

Candidates drop out of a presidential race to preserve their egos as much as their war chests: Rick Perry could have continued on but he had approached the point when even he saw how ridiculous he looked. Michele Bachmann realized that she'd lose whatever followers she had by continuing forward. And poor Tim Pawlenty's distinctly Midwestern bashfulness pretty much put him out of the race before it began. (His civility will probably keep him from being the vice-presidential nominee.)

Gingrich has already suffered some of the worst humiliations the political process can offer: vertiginous electoral losses (with another one coming up, if the Florida polls are to be believed), ethical scandals, public airings of private immorality, being caught in bald-faced lies, a disapproval rating higher than Michael Vick's (and it keeps getting worse). This hasn't stopped him. Reporters (and the GOP establishment) have to ask themselves what possibly could?

He's running against the Republican establishment, so the kind of backroom deal-making that can ease out many popular-but-doomed candidates – they're promised an administration position or support at a later date – is out. Lack of money is an obvious campaign-killer, but Newt defies conventional wisdom on this count, as well. Besides one big backer, he can bask in his free publicity – the media love covering him.

He delivers jaw-dropping soundbites like they were Tiffany's baubles: sterling and useless, but impossible to ignore. His knack for the outrageous ensures a minute or two on the evening news and almost endless loops on cable, media coverage that you couldn't buy if you wanted to. A third-party run would be a step backward, and deprive him of the chance to wreck havoc at the GOP convention.

There may be a point at which his poll numbers are so low, and the delegate count so disproportionate (and insurmountable) that he is robbed of his platform. But the latter is further away, chronologically, than you might think: after the Florida primary, 95% of the convention delegates are still yet to be awarded. If he were truly walloped on Super Tuesday, where 22% of the delegates are at stake, he could make as graceful an exit as he's capable of – but he might also make a strong showing in his home state of Georgia and in Tennessee. Further, as Newt himself keeps reminding the media, a lot primaries left on the calendar award delegates proportionally; he just needs a steady trickle to remain in the game.

Romney's best chance to knock Newt out, beyond simple math, is if he finally transcends the lackluster welcome voters have given him. Right now, Romney is coasting on his supposed electability, but that is a thin platform for a lot of Republican primary voters.

The latest poll in Florida shows that while Romney comes the closest to beating Obama in a hypothetical match-up (41% to Obama's 49%), the remaining candidates all muster around 35%. With a margin of error of 2.5%, that puts everyone on an equal footing, around 10 points behind the president.

I don't assume that primary voters will do the math on this, but if it becomes evident that the GOP is going to lose in the fall, I think there are a lot of voters who would like to lose big. And no candidate would make a bigger splash losing than Newt Gingrich. (Nationally, Newt trails Obama by more than any other GOP candidate.)

But we're talking about Florida. We're talking about today. And at this point, all that can knock him out is a flu bug or a conscience. And with Gingrich, these are both things you'd need a microscope to see.